31 October 2006

Arma virumque cano

Yes, indeed: "Of Arms and the Man I Sing".

Extry extry! New translation of T'Aenid. Hmm, when I studied it under the lightning cane of Mr Mason, it was The Aeneid. O Tempora, O so forth.

Anyway, if I didn't tell you, you'd never know: That clever prof Robert Fagles has taken a new look at "THE AENID" which, if it (quote)"sells like RF's editions of The Iliad and The Odyssey, will eventually be known to hundreds of thousands of readers, by choice and by assignment."

Quoth the don,

"I think it's a poem about heroism and empire, about the glory of imperial hopes and the pain of having imperial hopes dashed.... I wanted to convey something about the modern understanding of war, and then about a man, an exile, a common soldier left terribly alone in the field of battle."

Aeneas is like Clint Eastwood, like Gary Cooper, a warrior and a worrier. He changes into the heroic tragic man, duty and endure, endure and duty."

As I say, rumour and malice to the fore: one of the wilder suggestions I picked up was that some local trader, angered by the new-style all-inclusive hotelery that the Louis chain represents, sought to attract bad publicity by poisoning guests' food. That has been disproved by the gas verdict, but it shows how tongues fly.

Apparently, "The toxic fumes entered the room where the children were sleeping from a leaking pipe connecting a gas-fired water boiler outside the room."

The island awash with verminous journos trying to hunt down English-speakers from whom to get a juicy quote.

On a more serious follow-up, I applaud any and every effort to repel tourist trash from these shores, but this seems to be going too far. I suspect this might deal a blow to next year's invasion.

(I love the idea of jolly Brit plumbers jetting over to check out our local hotels' plumbing and heating. I must scour the tavernas for where they're boozing and engage them in nostalgic Brit-type chat such as wot I don't normally get out here.)

25 October 2006

Veil-less in Gaza

(Or at least in the casbahs and sand dunes of sunny Yorkshire).

Full marks in my book for any nail fired broadside into the coffin of current drivel about 'multi-culturalism'.

Which is why I'm having such fun watching Britain's niqab knees-up over these faceless veils, not to mention stalwart House of Commons honcho, Jack Straw, going into cat/pigeon interface mode by asking niqab-toting women to uncover for better face-to-face interaction.

Not so much 'better' than plain damn'd polite, if you ask me.

When I converse with someone, I like to see the cut of their jib. Something suspect about a masked stranger.

For those who like their controversies convoluted and spiced with buzz words of the likes of 'integration' and 'tolerance', try this busy little piece from my former daily reading.

But beware: It contains brainy language and heavy theorising, such as that:

"Some Muslim women in the West may choose this garb (which is not mandated in the Koran), but their explanations often reveal an internalized misogynistic view of women as creatures whose very existence is a sexual provocation to men."

Dumbest Generation

From the buzz about Mark Bauerlein's look at the soi-disant 'intellectual life' of our young, it sounds to be a gift for media coverage.

"The Dumbest Generation" carries an eye-snagging subtitle: "How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future".

Prof of English at Emory U, MB casts a spotlight on how the infantilization of our culture and the misplaced faith in the knowledge economy and its digital diversions are corroding young minds at a critical juncture.

23 October 2006

22 October 2006

Two Muses

I'm clearly a vindictive man because, other than Lurve, my other strongest Muse is Anger or Revenge.

I can go months, years, without picking up the guitar to compose. Meet the right gal and shazam! I'm reeling out the lyrics and melody.

Anger is a little dicier to play but I find myself in a frenzy of creativity no thanks to an incident of such pettiness that I'm ashamed that such a good song is rolling forth.

Scenario: Mama phones me from London with request to set up a luncheon of favourite folks to meet her venerable and very interesting pal with whom she is flying back. I do so.

One of the guests has folks staying, a major major actress from the 1960s on whom the whole world had a crush. He asks if he can bring her and her hubby along and I say yes, vowing to work day and night on the garden for Mum in return for screwing up the placement. As it turns out, Mama is rather happy to meet the mega name of yesteryear.

Come luncheon morning, frenzied activity to prepare the gourmet meal that mama always delivers, purchase of wine of the finest, moi raking and sweeping so that chateau busker is at its tidiest.

But tiens! What is this? A pillar of the church has turned up - avec wife - no doubt to welcome the matriarch home and check that all is well.

Nae problem: they will see that we have guests, accept the drink we press upon them (actually, NOT accept, if they have an ounce of sensitivity, and piss off) and make their excuses and leave.

They stay and they stay and they stay.

I have images burned on my memory:

My mother sitting at the far end of the patio, back to her guests, in conversation with PoC, as if to say "I know I invited you lot to lunch but you know what? I'm much more interested in my UN-invited guest

I'm scrabbling to look after our guests and keep glasses filled and keep the luncheon on track.

At my side is wife of PoC wittering away on her usual inconsequentialia.

Meanwhile, our 90-year-old pal is being poured another glass of wine, on a soft head that needs food.

They stay and they stay and our legit guests are looking at me and at each other like wha' the fuck?

I'm ashamed: I failed to defend my guests. I should have marched over to Mama, she with her back to her guests, and said "Mother, we WILL do right by our guests.

When Brad and Angie are on the guest list, we will look after them. Today, they are not, so they will enjoy their drink and I will escort them to the door and see them on their way with a merry wave."

I did not, they overstayed and sent the lunch out of kilter, plus confirming that, come the crunch, Busker and mère lack the backbone to deliver. That rankles and it hurts.

I may be a wimp but I'm a mean and thinking wimp and as I nursed my grievance, the saintèd Bobbie Dylan started growling in my ear in his wailing 'Man with a long black cloak' / Like a roller dirgey mode. I couldn't shake it.

Church Pillar runs musical nights for the devoted and, having spotted my guitar, has been urging me to join the acts. Without hearing me pluck a single chord, Mrs Pillar has nailed me in one: "Let me guess, you do all the lovely singalongs ... you must sign up. It'll be good for you, and you'll meet all sorts of people. Who knows? (Knowing chuckle) You might meet a girlfriend."

Praise Jesus - I'll meet a "girlfriend".

I've made my modest excuses and side-stepped the invite but, you know what? I suddenly feel like taking that troubadour spot.

The band I play with have the Dylan backing down pat - cushiony organ, 4-square bass, punctuating bouzouki - and the lyrics have appeared from nowhere. Well, not nowhere; they've appeared from rage and revenge.

Early days yet, so bear with me. Imagine yourselves on some Ionian dig and you've come across scraps of ancient chansonnier hieroglyphics.

Professor, over here - I think we've got something ... an ancient libretto of sorts ..""Steady on, Ginger ... close, but it's no libretto. They appear to be fragments of some sort of chorus. Let's leave Hussein to tackle the main verses and see what we've got ...."

"You got yer hymn book and humbug, You've really got God powerAnd you always turn up at the lunchtime hour

There's a Calvary cross where my Saviour diedAnd a Garden in Gethsemane where Judas lahdNo need translation in that Babel TowerComes the man, comes the luncheon hour

Moses he said to Pharaoh, let my people goI've got a Red Sea to partAnd 40 years of woeGimme my milk and honey and a hidden shady bowerFor when the Canaanites come cadging'N' crashing my luncheon hour

Wail of harp, jangle of Fender

Serpent of the apple, its virtues did extoll,"Chomp this little baby, Adam gonna rock 'n' roll,Eat it while the Big Guy's doing good works afar,Before the holy roller twigs it's luncheon hour"

Cue mess of music and happy jamming, shimmering down to solo acoustic guitar and quavering sensitive vox:

21 October 2006

Bees Knees

Spent an afternoon with a secretive sort of cove who *says* he's from the dark side but you never know these days ... and is this true?

Bees can be used to detect landmines?

Tests have been made using honey bees that had been attuned to the whiff of TNT and were attracted to high explosives as if they were flowers?

(At this point I can sense gentle readers booting off and wondering when *will* boy kick the sauce, like duude!)

Up to now it's been dogs to find unexploded ordnance, right? Slow and dangerous work for both chiens and their handlers.

But Mister Bee just flies across the mine field and hover around the naughty explosives sans risk of detonation and the swarm shows us where the stuff is. Brilliant.

Having trained the little darlings to trace improvised explosive devices, we then move on to methamphetamine labs, corpses and all sorts of other uses, maybe even oil, heh heh.

Oh and get this for a giggle: not only are the bees attracted to the landmines but they'll also *really* like buzzing round the guys who handled the explosives. When they go to land on their hands ... swat, shoo! STINNGG!! Woot!

This is a gal thing so all you chap readers can glide your eye right on by.

Whoever did this Liz Earle site deserves a medal: every time a lady mutters fishingly about her (usually flawless) skin, I've sent them here and a few days later they call up cursing me for sending them to a site that they can't stop exploring.

It is rather well constructed with all the bells and whistles we gurls like to make us feel feminine.

17 October 2006

So this is how I will cop it - the dread Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) with its delightful side-serving of "chronic bronchitis and emphysema (slayer of my dad) and leading cause of death worldwide" (very nice, I must say).

At least I'll spot it: Begins with a cough leading to fatigue, shortness of breath and difficulty breathing as the lungs are destroyed.

16 October 2006

As a dad of daughters and one who himself gazes too oft at wine when it is red, I worry about the trend of young ladies indulging in binge drinking that makes my salad day excesses look like a model of temperance.

Disturbing, therefore, to read the Torygraph article that,

"Instead of being told that they must accept responsibility for putting themselves at risk by getting insensibly inebriated, young women are to be shielded from the consequences of their own recklessness.

This is what counts as a solution to the problem of female "binge drinking".

Drunkenness of a degree and a regularity that would have had you classed as having a psychiatric problem in the United States [was] considered to be a sign of clubbable acceptability."

14 October 2006

HER PLACE

She wanted to show me "Her Place", a secret she had discovered while driving around, trying to like something about the isle. No one else had seen it.

We drove to the roof of the world, from where we walked the rest of the way.

Breathtaking view, without wondering what lay ahead.

Down in the sweeping bay is a lone rock - the 'ortholithi - jutting out to sea. There is a legend attached:

An intrepid landlubber noticed a bees' hive halfway up and decided to have him some, climbed to the pinnacle and then lost his nerve coming down.

Praying to the local saint, he promised half the honey proceeds if he got down safely. Which he did, and promptly forgot his promise.

So, time passes and he rather likes his wealth so he decides on a seconf foray. Lowering himself on the rope, he sees a vicious serpent coiling to attack. Unsheathing his Bowie, he slices the scaley one in twain ...

You got it, the 'serpent' was the dude's own rope, which he cut through, sending himself into the brine and down to Davy Jones' locker.

The gods are not mocked.

Up a narrow track she led us, me joking that it was exactly the rural outback where one *should* come across that rare sight, a black-clad crone astride donkey.

Rounding the trail, there ahead *is* the very beast of burden, albeit sans hag atop. We clamber on up until we reach a tin shack (as it seems) whose key she turns and door opens to reveal a gem of a chapel with icons on every wall and the most exquisite candles and woodwork on the pews.

We slip coins in the box and light candles and sit for a while, each lost in thought.

For me, a mystical experience and I am lost for words when we finally make our way down.

11 October 2006

Fink Rat

They should be running scared out there if not actually crawling away to die a horrible death in some nook inaccessible to hound Sam.

Instead, they are sitting around some water hole giggling their ratty tails off at me.

In my quest to make Ranchero Busker a rodent-free zone, I have taken advice from all quarters:

Mama read somewhere that a whiff of tar will send them shrieking into the next county

I get myself (and much of the house and surroundings) thoroughly murky daubing the mucky stuff here and there (mostly *here* about my person)

Mountain man and lion of the nightcrew, the canny apond, tells me that a dab of ammonia behind the ears will speak of a 'serious cat presence'.

Jars all over the house - and blimey, that stuff don't half hit the nostrils if you stand over the open jar.

Pet store bloke shows me pills that they nosh on and crawl off to meet the Maker.

Succulent plates of the pills are distributed all around

I'm left with the residue which I put downstairs in the toolshed, on a high shelf and all at one end: jar with tar; ammonia bottle; plate of pills.

I go down today to fetch the shears to trim the Judas Tree and I happen to glance at the shelf: absolutely covered in rat droppings all around the tar and ammonia and particularly *in* the plate of poison which they clearly enjoyed and came back for seconds.

What galls me is that this is not an easy shelf to get to so they must really have wanted to sample the fare.

Dude Rat: 'Ullo doll, fancy coming out for some nosh and a bit of slap 'n' tickle after?

Babe Rat: Ooh, cheeky - you are a one. OK then, where we goin' then?

Dude: Well, it's a bit of a climb but werf it when ya gets there. Luverly food - you know, bit of home cooking, bit of exotic, and they do a luverly ammonia tiramisu

Cry Reptile

As I've toiled in the grassier recesses of the garden, I have been aware of a certain large and slithery presence.

But I am shouted down when I mention it and told that I don't get out of slave labour as easily as that.

(Also, I do rather have a tendency to imagine spooky jungle creatures - particularly after the third Glenlivet.)Well, my dears, imagine my surprise when I went to get the hose and cleaning equipment to give the pool a vacuuming, and there on the pump room roof is this gorgeous but ginormous sloughed skin just lying there next to the storage crate.

Yes, loves, very funny - I do see the blue python tucked away there - very drole.

I tell you, I reached over for the cleaning gear with a respectful delicacy and caution.

Almost enough to make me a dinky little handbag *and* have enough left over for that pair of scaley winklepickers I've been promising myself.

Another shot with CDs for size.

I can't *wait* to show it to the rest of them and watch them eat their words.

Guzzle

I always enjoy the quotes people run in their blogs - Binary is going thru a particularly good run these days.

Which has nothing to do with the fact that as I scoot round the island, I can't help being repelled by the sheer blubber on our visting tourists.

Of course, I too would be in that category were it not for the daily bending and hoeing in the garden, so I'd better watch what I say.

What Saint Gregory says is both thoughtful and graciously phrased:

"The Vice of Gluttony tempts us in five ways:

Sometimes it forestalls the hour of need.

Sometimes it seeks costly meats

Sometimes it requires the food to be daintily cooked

Sometimes it exceeds the measure of refreshment by taking too much

Sometimes we sin by the very heat of an immoderate appetite."

I used to think that I had never seen such vastness of thigh and bum until I came to America. Britain is fast catching up if not overtaken its American cousins.

According to the ominous and depressing Bad Food Britain :

One in four British family homes doesn't even have a dining table

Three quarters of families eat together round the tele

Only a fifth of families eat together once a week.

So saying, off I scurry for a slap-up brek at the Chandris Hotel of OJ, scrambled eggs and bacon, toast and marmalade, lashings of coffee - and best of all, an unhindered view across the table linen of the most beautiful girl in the world.

No one's actually admitting that he's been fired, but Reuters have confirmed that Maguire was granted conditional approval to write his book on the sizzling long-legged A.C.

In a risible biz-speke statement such as might be spouted by a Bainbridge Island city planner, Reuters tried to "explain" Maguire's booting by quoting their principles of "integrity, independence and freedom from bias."

09 October 2006

Bird for Busker

To His Excellency the Danish consul's to celebrate some scandiwegian festival involving - nay, requiring - the downing of large quantities of nordic firewater.

H.E. in top form, conversing in every language under the sun. As I pass, he comments to his British counterpart:

"I *do* admire your Tony Blair. It must take such fortitude to contemplate such an unblemished record of failure.

He seems to have achieved everything except success."I have an asinine haircut and look like a plucked chicken. Naturally, the night's sport is to find me a girfriend. Ha ha, very funny.

The Consul's wife is the consummate hostess and caters for all her guests' needs.

She offers me newly-arrived (and newly single-fied) hottie, Diane. I stammer thanks but say she looks rar ther expensive. Madame Consul assures me that the delectable D's divorce settlement will more than provide. Still I dither so she throws in free shipping, much to the amusement of Olympic yachtsman Per Eitzen.

The creature in black is the exquisite Princesse de Something de Other, heiress to some shipping fortune and currently schooling in Switzerland.

I can never judge babes' ages so there I am chatting her up in my best francais and I ask her if she's married. She bursts out laughing and trills in cut-glass English, "For heaven's sake, you silly thing, I'm still at *school*."

Deep blush and stammer.

**Everyone** laughs and I am "Silly Thing" for the rest of the evening, except to Diane who is very understanding and agrees that the Princess looks oh, at least 18.

Frighteningly self-possesed young lady, also conversing in multi languages. Studying to be an international lawyer (whatever that is) and already with places at two universities. I think she said she favoured Oxford but that Lausanne was 'tempting'.

She had flown in for the party and to see her aunt and is flying out on Wednesday straight from a dinner party. I am not that easily fooled; I know the plane schedules and I catch her out by reminding her that there *are* no flights on Wednesday at that hour.

She gives me a look of non-comprehension and patiently explains that her flight is when she says it is. Because I am being so obtuse, she points out her pilot.

Burly dude in striped shirt.

I am shocked.

Since when have we taken to bringing the hired help to polite society?

06 October 2006

Cig Power

With news of my belovèd France caving into the nico-nazis and approving a proposal to ban smoking in public areas, it really does seem that the nannies are winning.

Only slight hope from an IHT article that "We French have a terrible contrarian characteristic that makes us reject anything imposed from above."

Three huge cheers, therefore, to my favourite reading, The Oldie, for devoting their October issue to splendid cover art and good writing in praise of the cancerous art of hacking and wheezing.

I'm not sure this is true, but word has it that the British busybodies want to set up an 0800 hotline for stoolpigeons to squeal on us persecuted puffers whenever we flout the smokes ban.

Can't you just imagine the loathsome specimens they'll bring in to man such a hotline:

"Thanks for calling CigSnitch. Your whistle-blowing is being recorded for training purposes.

Press one if you're reporting a cigarette smoked stylishly in the manner of a femme fatale

Press 2 for a secretive cig concealed in a cupped hand

Press 3 for a furtive fag behind the bike sheds

If you wish to report someone wearing nicorette patches in a flamboyant self-satisfied manner, press four ....

Speaking of T'Oldie - which I do everywhere I go - Jerusha McCormack's oddly moving piece on Enduring Grief is online for bereaveds and others to read and gain whatever comfort they can from it.

Basically, Ball in jar beats trad crap platitudes.

Speaking of my beloved France, amused to see the old chestnut revived. You know the one, two reasons for the British to dislike the French: Firstly, they are too logical; secondly they own France - "a country which we have always judged to be much too good for them".

Well not me, if les francais are going to be so pusillanimous as to hound puffeurs of les bonnes gauloises. Greece seems to be the last bastion and I know that there's meant to be some ruling around the corner but I am assured by one and all that we will simply be very Greek and nod the sniveling legislation in and proceed to ignore it with the contempt it deserves. (Coughing will be believing.)

Trademark cigar: A sad tale from the world of books concerning the once-proud house of Heinemann under whose umbrella my former employer, Martin Secker & Warburg, once preened.

The cover featured the iconic shot of the great man - from which the pricks removed his cigar because - whimper mewl - they thought teachers wouldn't like it.

Well, fuck you Heinemann - down whose corridors strode such giants as Tim Manderson, Tom Rosenthal and the Nigels Hollis and Viney, real publishers with vision and backbone whose boot laces the current herd are not fit to lick.

What a spineless toadying shower they've turned out to be, no longer fit to call themselves publishers and a disgrace to such distinguished back-list scribblers as as Maugham, Ustinov and Vidal.

Rat Repel

I once had an author who refused to have any competent or flattering photo on the back flap of his book on the theory that a writer should be writing and not posing or poncing for some glamour shot that'd help his publicist place him with the media.

Any crittur repelling bunch that can pack so many typos and mis-spellings into its sitehas to be focusing more on what it's good at than pandering to English major pedants like me.

03 October 2006

Francis Bacon

Interesting article on Francis Bacon reminds me of another unlikely name-dripping tale from back in my 1970s publishing days when the likes of me and Gwyn Headley (whom God preserve) bestrode the universe as Masters of the booksy PR scene.

Muriel's: The Secker office was in Soho's Carlisle Place, a mere stumble down to the French pub and the Colony Room Club, better known as Muriel's after the razor-tongued owner (God rest her soul, where'er it be perched in some celestial dive).

Serious imbibing and the clientele was a Qui C'est Qui of the louche and famous.

Of whom two were Tom "Doctor Who" Baker (of the voluminous scarf) and Francis.

First off, I may have been a thrusting young hackery turk commanding the publicity destinies of such worthy scribblers as Melvyn Bragg (Lord Bragg to you), Saul Bellow, David Lodge et co, but I never presumed to hobnob with the Bacon coterie.

So one evening Francis was tottering around with his usual bouteille of champers (Have I told this before? Stop me if you've heard it), generously offering to one and all. When he came to me, tilting it towards my half pint of lager, I said without thinking, "Thanks but no. I won't sponge off you, Francis."

Francis stopped mid pour and went over to Muriel:

"Do you know what this divine boy just said to me?"

"Leave him alone, you randy c**t (Muriel spoke only the refinedest U English), he's all right."

"No, you don't understand. He said he wouldn't sponge off me.

Ever after, he was always v friendly when we met.

Baker's 23 million dozen: For some reason, Muriel's sported an incongruous ceiling-dangling TV that no one watched, of course, because we were too busy sponging and assignating and poncing around in our sideburns and kipper ties and Harilela suits.

One evening, Francis pointed out to Tom that the bloke on the box with the Medusa locks and swathing scarf bore a bizarre resemblance.

"Of course it looks like me, you daft c**t - haven't you heard of f****ng Doctor Who?" Shake of head.

"See that up there? Twenty-three *million* people watch that. Do even 23 *hundred* know what a f****ng* 'Francis Bacon' looks like?"

I forget the reply.

And isn't there some story about someone preaching the tax-free virtues of Switzerland, to which Francis snorted in derision that he'd go mad looking at "all those effing views".

"When is it OK to be rude?" asks the excellent Athens News, and lets the witty Kathy Tzilivakis go to town in an article as funny as it is dead accurate.

Some tips that I, too, have picked up here:

Dahling, kiss on *both* cheeks, even the raspy ones of male pals.

No, petal, do NOT make that chi-chi circular OK sign with your fingers; it's terribly rude and could get you a knuckle sandwich in the wrong company.

Don't talk to the hand: Another favourite of mine that stumps the tourist Brit oiks every time is the palm raised towards somebody. Yes, yes - to you and *me* it means "stop", or even Hi or Bye, but in Greece, it's known as the moutza and is the equivalent of giving someone the finger, a gesture I see to my dismay has crossed the Atlantic and is regularly used by the more asinine of my countrymen. Whatever happened to the good old "V"-sign, eh?

Say "Ta": Saying 'thank you' is very English. The Greeks will tell you to give it a rest. Theory is that we anglais have an insecurity complex and feel that, by saying 'thank you', we sort of cancel some sort of debt. Sounds bollocks to me but there you are.

Aye, in Greece, people say 'thank you' a lot less often, but there is more a sense of giving to others without question.

Space: Ho ho, my pet peeve, that ludicrous piece of sensitive Americana, Personal Space. The Greeks have no truck with such pathetic daintiness and like to come up close and tap or touch or fondle or hug.

Apart from their comic clothing and that inane stretched smile denoting solemn interest in all around them, you can spot the colonials by their backing away from those they feel are "violating" their 'personal space', rude dudes.

Smoking - guffaw. Most everywhere else - and it's spreading, dammit - smoking chez un non-smokeur is considered mauvais etiquette. Not in the blessed land of Homer: asking a smoker *not* to smoke is considered rude and inhospitable, if not laughable.

Hosts are expected to supply ashtrays for guests, and quite right, too.

Yep, Greece is a non-smoker's nightmare, non-smokers are a minority, and despite puny non-smoking legislation in stores, restaurants, cafes, banks and the like, everyone lights up without a second thought.

Yes, restaurants have caved in to special seating for non-smokers, but the best tables are reserved for smokers. Comme il faut, or the Greek equivalent.